Far and away, I prefer the Cineo remote phosphor lights—CRI of 98, no harshness (since the phosphor panel is in itself a diffuser), 160° beam spread. It is why in spite of the challenges of mounting in a van, I chose 4 Cineo Matchbox units for my Mercedes Sprinter photography adventure van—light quality matters a great deal to me, and 1 to 100% dimming lets me get things just right and the light just where I want it. Plus there is a battery option for the Matchbox units and they color match to daylight extremely closely—better than anything I’ve seen before, almost free of a magenta tint that plagues most LED lights.

Recently I consulted with an MD (dermatologist) who is building up a Sprinter van for his medical practice. I recommended without hesitation one of the larger Cineo remote phosphor lights for color accuracy (critical for skin examinations methinks) as well as the 1% to 100% dimming and very high light output with low power draw.

I own 3 of the Dracast bi-color lights. They are a huge value and I use them for room lighting—very handy when I need light as I see less well in dim light now. But by far I prefer the build quality and light quality of the Cineo lights.

Matt H writes:

I bought one of the Cineo Matchbox lights on your suggestion (and used your link) to use with my webcam. It dramatically improved the quality of my image for this purpose.

The RRS B6 series of plates fit the Matchbox perfectly, I’ve discovered. For now, I’m using mine with an RRS BH-25 ballhead and a Joby Gorillapod, both of which I had laying around. That works fine and doesn’t look terrible on my desk (I have a lot of visitors). I’ve ordered a second Cineo Matchbox for my home office. I’ll be testing a couple clamps to see if I can come up with an elegant way to mount the light - ideally at a lower cost than the BH-25 + Joby combo. It’d be nice to find a way to clamp the Matchbox to the side of my NEC PAW-302, but I haven’t found a “just right” clamp, yet

Thanks for writing about the Cineo products. Good stuff.

By the way, I bought a 4Runner TRD-Pro last year and put a rooftop rack on it for possible use as a photography platform, thinking I might camp in it or go on a Lloyd Chambers-style photo trip from time to time. I haven’t done that, yet, but I’ve had it off-road several times and it performs better than expected. I can’t use it as an office, but it does fit in my garage – ha!

DIGLLOYD: IMO, the light from the Cineo remote phosphor lights like the Matchbox is unrivalled.

I had strongly considered the Toyota 4Runner TRD Pro as my next vehicled but it offered me no real change over my Cayenne (in-vehicle office as in my Sprinter), and its power output is barely adequate to climb roads above 8000'. Still Toyotas are very reliable and it is an excellent choice for an SUV.